told Rourke one morning after fishing out on the Viking Star, a charter boat Rob liked to go on. Rourke was hosing off bluefish in a plastic tub. Rob ran me across the street to Zorba’s Inn, a dilapidated motel near Gosman’s that looked like a lean-to. He pulled an Instamatic from his sweatshirt pocket. “Get a shot of me in front of Zorba’s. I’m gonna tell Jimmy Landes this is where Harrison is living.”
Sometimes when I was at work, they would go over to the OTB in Southampton and then to the Woodshed by the Bridgehampton drive-in to see some waitress Rob had a thing for. I met her one night at the carnival in North Sea; her name was Laura Lasser. Laura wore blue eyeliner and stonewashed jeans with an eyelet T-shirt and skinny white skip sneakers from Caldor. She was pretty but heavy, which was okay by Rob, who frankly liked a big ass.
When Rob took her on the rickety old Ferris wheel that night, Rourke told him, “Jesus, be careful up there.”
Like wayward objects from the sky, the guys would just show up at one of the picnic tables behind the Lobster Roll, usually around ten, straddling the benches and talking shit about Johnny Rutherford doing 142 miles per hour to win the Indianapolis 500 or Ottis Anderson’s 1600-yard rushing season or the Steelers or the Lakers or Evel Knievel’s Snake River Canyon jump, or just old times in Rob’s ’68 Challenger or on the boardwalk with Daisy and Pongo and the Chinaman.
When Rob’s friend Bobby G. died that August from complications following the motorcycle accident he’d had in March, Rourke met Rob in the Bronx one Sunday for the service. They showed up in Montauk after midnight with Rob hanging limp off of Rourke’s shoulder, both of them wearing navy pinstripe suits. Rourke jerked his head for me to leave the room, but Rob said no. “Don’t make her go, Harrison. I don’t want her to go.”
Rob halfway undressed, and he straddled the arm of the sofa in his sleeveless undershirt and his suit pants, clutching a bottle of Cuervo. Rourke made egg sandwiches, and I watched the topography of Rob’s skinny tattooed arm flicker as he folded and unfolded a matchbook from Ruggerio’s Funeral Home. It was a beautiful arm, tapered and muscular, like a junkie’s arm. When the deejay on WPLR said, “This is Dana Blue. The request line is open,” Rob waved the bottle left and right, going, “Get me the phone, get me the phone.” As if by some supernatural occurrence, he got through to the station, and we three drew together in a memorable trinity—Rourke holding a plate of eggs and hovering over Rob, Rob on the sofa, legs apart, knees high, holding the receiver, and me kneeling on the floor with the phone like an offering, all of us still except for the manic push of Rob, the life and guts of him.
“I just lost a friend,” he said. “You know what I’m saying—he’s dead.” Dana Blue must have said sorry and asked what could she do, because he thanked her, then cleared his throat. “Can you send out Dylan’s ‘Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door’ to Bobby G.? Tell him it’s from Robbie and the Chinaman.”
If they came to pick me up before my shift ended, I would bring them beers and fries, which made Rob happy. Rob liked to get a deal, it was a matter of pride, it made him feel less cheated by life. His was in a tough predicament. It’s tough when the things that make you proud—family, heritage, home—are the same things that shame you. One reason Rourke meant so much to Rob was that Rourke was like one foot in and one foot out. And Rourke was conscious of that line. Whenever Rob was around, Rourke tightened up, like trying not to stumble or risk hurting Rob in any way. Sometimes they would talk quietly, and when I’d pass by, they’d get quieter still. I’d pick up the empty fries baskets and the beer bottles and wipe down the table, and Rourke would unfold his arms and reach for me, taking me by the hips into his lap or running a hand up the inside of one thigh and down the other.
Sometimes Rob would manufacture fake conversations when I would come by to hide the fact that they’d actually been speaking of Mark Ross. “So, this girl Rudy married, right, she’s a born-again. They’re